Flare slipped to the side, and whipped the blade of her fauchard with her twisting momentum into the suit of armor that was harrying Riven. There seemed to be very little in the way of stopping the things with them all around... So best to take them down quickly.
Flare strike the suit of armor and makes a good crack in it.
One of these days, she was going to need to brush up on a few combat spells, or at least some hexes that could affect undead (which these seemed to be). Give her some items or creatures to examine and she was fine, but combat definitely wasn't Cynthia's forte. Nobody could be good at everything, though - that's what working together was all about. Cynthia continued carefully retreating, doing everything she could to stay out of the melee.
Once in position, Thalion calls on the power Erastil and directs the divine energy against the suits of armor.
I'll be MIA for the next few days, going up to Auckland to watch the Australia / New Zealand grudge match for the Cricket World Cup. I'll be back Sunday evening NZ time, so feel free to GMPC me in the meantime
Riven tries to shrug the blow off at least until the armors are dealt with, if she can hit both with it she casts grease under their feet then takes a five foot step back. Reflex DC 15
Armor attack of op
Armor reflex
The suit of armor in front of Riven slips on the grease and falls down.
did everyone go? If it's everyone but victor I'll npc victor.
I meant to share this updated map
victor trows another bomb
The downed suit gets up (provokes attacks for Flare, Riven and Thalion)
It attacks Thalion
The other one attacks Flare
your go again.
Flare plays Whack-a-mole with one suit of armor as it begins to stand back up... and quite probably makes it very, very sorry for doing such a terrible thing... then swings and misses the other, after a bit of combat adjustment, in which she swings, sways... and throws herself slightly off-balance with an obvious miss.
Apparently, being vengeful for hurting her friends is just something that's going to keep happening with Flare's attacks.
Thalion takes a step and tries to trip the lone moving suit.
Cynthia stepped back again, not bothering to waste her crossbow bolts as she considered her options. Well, at least the others seemed to have the violence bit well in-hand - that was always nice to see.
after taking the last hit Riven retreats further back and fires her frost ray from a safe distance.
The suit is tripped by Thalion.
Victor hangs back doing nothing for now.
The suit tries to get back up provoking attacks for thalion, flare and Riven.
take your attacks will do the armors action if it survives.
Thalion's follow-through is far from spectacular, and he watches in dismay as the thrust deflects harmlessly to the side as the suit attempts to rise.
"Hmm, Flare made it seem so easy..."
The second armors falls apart after a solid blow from flare and the rooms seems warmer somehow. The cold presence you felt has retreated for the moment.
Flare breathes a sigh of relief, ending her performance, and slumping slightly. She moves quickly over to riven, even as she's saying the words to her spell, and places a hand on Riven.. while they have downtime.
Seeing Flare take care of Riven, Thalion heads over to Cynthia and calls on similar healing energy for the woman. "Hold still a moment. Let me look at your wounds. You ok?"
"Good call, Thalion. I'll make sure nothing attacks. If you need more healing, back there, let me know. For now, I'll guard the way forward. That just looked... bad... at least they aren't coming for now."
"Much appreciated." Cynthia said, nodding slightly as Thalion sent a minimal amount of healing into her. "By the way, all of you, let me know before you do something truly important - I may be able to help." Keeping behind the others, Cynthia turned to look about the hall, noting the large number of doors leading out. "Hmm... probably a number of side passages... how thorough would you like to be in investigating this place?" she inquired of the others.
"Same thing as before. Pretend our resources aren't limitless. I can heal a few more times if needed... but I think I've only got so much more inspiring wiggle before you guys get tired of it and start asking me to stop." She sways her body slightly, standing on the balls of her feet, which somehow evokes the image of a cat about to pounce. It might be a joke. "How's everyone else doing?
"I'm about to heal you some more. That's pretty important, don't you think?" Thalion grins playfully at Cynthia, glad to see everyone looks up and about and doing well. Even as he banters, the cleric calls on Erastil yet again, hoping for a more definitive response this time.
Cynthia watched as Thalion's channeling sputtered somewhat. His healing... really didn't seem to be up to par today. "It's all right." she said gravely, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Everyone has performance issues every now and then." Despite her jest, she was far from ungrateful for his efforts, and gave him a smile as she turned her attention to other matters. "Flare, would you be so kind as to examine the room on the left?"
"I... guess. Good job with the tripping, guys. It makes a solid difference in what I can do." She says finally, slipping her weapon into a guarded pose as she moves forward. She'd only take her hands off of the weapon if she had to to operate the door.
"Useless spells."She muttered to herself.
grudgingly she accepted Flares healing and got ready to move on
You open the door and look inside. A large table lies in shambles in the middle of this room, while crumbled suits of armor bearing decorations of dragons twisting around castle towers lie in heaps along the walls. A flight of stairs winds up along a curved wall to the north.
"Broken armor, broken table, and a staircase." Flare supplies to the others.
"Best to examine this floor in full first, I believe." Cynthia said, indicating the door furthest from the entrance and on the left next. "I've found it's often better to explore around in a sensible direction. That one next, if you would." She clearly had no intention of opening the doors herself - and given how vulnerable she was in melee, that was unlikely to change anytime soon.
Flare repeated the process for the next door, keeping a defensive stance as she moved near the armor.
You open the door and see a curved hallway that leads into another room. You enter from the west and see old tapestries depicting a castle hang askew on the walls of this circular room and a thick layer of dust cakes the floor. The air is musty and weirdly cold. Old bloodstains splatter the walls, along with numerous brutal gashes and slashes to the stone itself. Two doors hang askew on hinges in a passageway to the south, while to the north, a third door lies in fragments on the floor, opening onto a flight of stairs leading down into darkness. A second staircase leads upward against the north wall going to the second floor.
"Well, that's unsettling." Cynthia said, peeking in from behind Flare. The warrior girl probably didn't need a reminder to stay on her guard, so Cynthia turned her attention to the rest of the room, taking in as many details as she could and trying to seize even the faintest fragment of information. That was her real talent, after all, and this sort of thing was exactly what she'd trained for.
Flare would frown at the devastation caused to the building itself. Gashes in stone were... not good. As a stoneworker (and architect), she knew the kind of work it took to do such a thing, and it usually took special tools. For the first time she was starting to actually show a bit of fear. Something that could carve stone could definitely carve parade armor. She moved towards the throne, tapping the serpents with the tip of her polearm to make sure they didn't do anything... crazy.
The scars are long and singular most likely from powerful blows from a large sword. The blood splatter would indicate several men met a brutal end here.
You notice as time passes the dry blood is becoming more...wet and is starting to run down the walls as if the walls are bleeding.
Cynthia immediately pulled backwards. "Thalion? I believe we're about to experience something where your particular talents would be beneficial. Would you mind coming over here?" she said, working to keep her voice calm as she got out of the way. "I'm not sure if it's a haunt or something else, but I believe it would be best to be careful."
"Rocks... don't bleed. So... yeah. It's something not in my particular playbook." She said as she looked over her shoulder, eyes widening slightly. Dead bodies were scary. Armor was scary. Bleeding walls? That was a different level of scary. "How do we make it stop..?"
As Thalion follows, the cleric studies the holy symbol carefully, and tries to rub it clean against his clothes. Noting the wounds on Riven still, he grips the symbol tightly and focuses, sending another wave of healing energy forth...
Noting the wounds still on Riven, the servant of Erastil sighs as he shakes his head. "Sorry Riven. I don't know what is going on between me and Erastil right now. Stay behind me. I'll protect you from whatever may come. Or, may be you should stay behind Flare instead. She's something when she gets mad."
As the group moves on, Thalion heeds the ladies' call and skips on ahead. "What is it?" He asks as he grins happily at Cynthia and Flare, appreciative of their work forging ahead and scouting while he was preoccupied with his connection with Erastil.
The blood pools in the room and suddenly rise up forming a group of soldiers made of blood. They charge forward as if to attack you but are hewed apart by an unseen attacker. Blood spatters everywhere and those near the door are sprayed.
Anyone sprayed takes negative energy damage and anyone viewing must make a will save dc 15 or flee. This is a mind affecting fear effect.
Victor trembles and backs away from the unsightly vision, retreating quickly.
Cynthia winced as blood splattered over some who'd been standing there - she'd retreated for a reason, though she wasn't so troubled that the effect was forcing her to retreat.
"Are you all right?" she inquired of the others, glancing around to see if the effect was going to spread out from that particular room.
Once you retreat away from that room the effect stops and the blood seems to evaporate in moments.
"I'm... good. How are you doing?" Flare comments from beside the throne as the blood seems to leave. "Blood's gone." She continued to poke around the throne. Surely there was something back here. Her architect sense was tingling as she began to search that wall. Assured that the snakes weren't going to try to eat her, she takes her time overlooking it.
hp
Riven would try to stop Thalion from healing her."I'm fine, I don't need protecting just a moment to rest. Go ahead I'll catch up.
Riven arrives with the group in time to see the event and flees with the party.
"I told you necromancy was an abomination." Once back in the room she casts detect magic.
You go back in the room with the blood effect?